In Case of Explosion, Back up Your Vampires
by L. Catherine Dion
Summary: Millions of years into the future, Abnormals and Humans alike have spread across the cosmos establishing their own worlds and colonies, creating new, different offshoots of existing species. Helen Magnus and Nikola Tesla live on, or do they? Kyra Skyfinder and Prime Archaeologist of Arill and her Prylarian companion, Valrr, take up the challenge. Blood is the key. Where is the door
1. Teslectric Beginnings

She had nothing when she came to the small village of Amberley, besides three suitcases and her feline companion who called himself Valrr. He had vociferously protested his confinement from the moment she'd stepped off the landing pad at a small airfield and continued to do so now. Due south of the space tower where she'd be working as the lead archaeologist for the area, the little village really was just an outpost but boasted lovely architecture woven into the landscape so that you'd scarcely realize it was there at all. As first impressions went, it was particularly amicable on all fronts even with the Prylarian's rusty yowl echoing into the fresh breeze and the scent of particularly pleasant silver flowers.

 _Nyowww_. _Kyra, I know the space authority told you to keep me in this box, but we are here. Nyowww, let me out. There are things to chase, places to explore, perhaps work to be done if I decide to care._ If he sounded aggrieved, she supposed she couldn't fault him. He had been cooped up for entirely too long, despite ample room to move about. The new world was calling to him as much as its secrets called to her.

 _Tell me you'll not go roaring after the next flying thing that you see and I might._ The retort she got back, she was fairly sure didn't have a direct translation. With a laugh, she stopped and unlatched the front door. He was quite large and when standing, his lithe silver and rust spotted form reached almost to her shoulder and his head on level with hers. The whorls and spots were splashed across his deep blue-black black fur, which stood on end for a moment as he glanced up at her with bright silver eyes marked with rust colored pupils.

 _That's better, my Arillian friend. The next time we travel, you try sitting in a box like a pet._ His voice was graveled and low, the rolled _r_ sound more of a rolling purr and the _s_ sounds elongated like a hiss.

"It isn't my fault, not that it was that much of a hardship, sitting in a veritable palace that took us seventy thousand units to procure. Mind you," Kyra said pressing a button on the massive carrier that folded the whole thing into a slim pocket sized square, "that was my pay from the last job, thank you." At least the carrier was larger than it might have seemed, for it transcended its spatial boundaries quite neatly. "Believe me, negotiations are still ongoing for your species and I spent nearly twenty-four hours arguing your case before the Interplanetary Travel Board. That's not including the six hours I spent in Renewal getting their voices scrubbed from my mind. Do you know how difficult it is dealing with a bunch of docupushers? They wouldn't come around and you didn't help by grinning at them like they were supper."

 _You tried. I suppose I can be grateful for that. These ITB idiots would do well to put down their visors once and awhile and reconsider that if I hadn't such a nice temperament, I would have eaten them all for a snack._ Kyra actually didn't doubt that part. Velrr could have easily taken the committee she'd met with in a few moments and the two officers in less. He was formidable in many ways and she, one of the lucky Ambassadors his kind had decided to pair with, as they did every so often and when they desired to do so. The greater interstellar community was on the fence about their intelligence and how much one could put faith in their translators who they called their Voices, despite numerous tests confirming the psychic ties they had with their Chosen. Valrr himself had sat Council for almost three hundred years, which ought to have been enough to vouch for his own intelligence, before he set his sights on the stars and bonded himself with Kyra of Arill some fifteen years prior.

He maintained that anyone demanding further proof of sentience ought to see those who were not so patient as he, which Kyra rather thought contradicted the entire line of thought. Prylar, his home planet, was exclusively native to his species and definitively not habitable by those humanoids who deemed it too dangerous to settle. It was with great pride that Valrr mentioned this, for Prylarians were clearly superior to such species that could not survive the wild beauty of the planet they called home.

It _was_ wild and for Kyra, it had become home for nearly ten years. She had found herself, after twenty-nine years planetary exploration and research, in the precarious position of crash landing on Prylar. She'd fought her way through the jungles, figured out which plants were safe and which were not, and held her own for three months against a great deal of predators by the time Valrr had found her. Kyra had brambles in her russet hair and a fierce fire in her light violet eyes as she prepared to square off against him with only a plasma dagger as her defense. Later, he'd told her that she was a true warrior and that it had pleased him to see someone finally drop from the sky who could give the wilds a run. He was the one that convinced the Council to let him keep her as his Voice and later, bond with her as they repaired her ship. Learning about the Prylarians and exploring the massive jungles and plains had lasted ten long but fascinating years before someone heard her beacon and come to investigate. Kyra had a difficult time getting them to not take ship and book it the moment she, Valrr, and a few of the younger pride came to investigate the noise. She couldn't blame the Humans for wanting to run, what with a wild alien woman and equally ferocious feline companions en tow.

Kyra was not the most opposing looking creature in the universe, short in stature by most standards and exceedingly short for her own species, she was only a mere four feet and nine inches of height. She was lean and all muscle, her skin nearly pale as the the third moon in the Prylarian sky, her eyes large, wide set in her face to the effect that it made her look nearly childlike to the Humans. But she was many years older than they and of a species very much known for their long lifespans. She supposed it was her strange eyes and her accent that finally persuaded them to take her at her word, that and the fact that her registry proclaimed that she was, indeed, Kyra Skyfinder of Arill, daughter to Koman, Skyfinder before her, and that she was _that_ Prime Archaeologist who had gone missing a decade prior. So, they would get the reward for bringing her home and she would have the privilege of taking a shower and soaping herself down for the first time in many, many years. No power in her ship, no shower, something she had lamented daily. Besides, the extreme humidity did nothing for her hair in any kind way. It had been waterfalls for her and some strange smelling local variety of soap weed for her to get mildly clean. It worked far better on her felianoid companion than she.

Her arrival back home had been one large celebration to the point where she'd booked the next transport right off world with Valrr to escape the waste of resources and endless parade of diplomats and dignitaries from organizations that had sprung up in the years she had been absent. Outfitted in the best ship she could have built for her needs, she and her friend had spent the years until now, drifting from job to job and obtaining as much credit as they could to fund their next jaunt. That included fuel as well as provisions. It was lucky for them, the tower was giving them living accommodations at its own expense.

Valrr padded next to her in silence, though she could feel the curiosity he radiated as they walked. Honestly, they could have taken a shuttle, but the both of them were more than pleased to walk the few miles from the airfield to their new home. She wasn't expecting what she found waiting for them, neither of them could. It was enough to find a mostly habitable shelter, but this? It was beautiful. Most of the structures were crafted out of the materials around them, theirs was no exception. It had been, apparently, dug out for them in the years it had taken them to travel to Tesla II and its orbiting moons, Helene and Nigel.

Tesla II was a ringed planet, heavily so, and even during the day one could see the multicolored electric tones of them in the sky. They were all that was left of Tesla I after the planet's demise a great deal of years prior - an experiment gone catastrophically wrong. Or right, if one considered the benefit they'd bestowed upon Tesla II. Helene, the closest companion moon, was luminous at any hour in a delicate silvery blue and purple, her oceans a riotous explosion of color, though the rivers that ran her surface were blood red ribbons. Most of her bounty was buried beneath her waters that ran rich with sentient life.

Nigel was a teeming forest moon located in that sweet spot that made his surface curiously habitable with billions of uncatalogued species, some so ridiculous that they looked like caricatures of creatures they might have represented. Kyra called it The Little Moon of Laughs because try as she might, she couldn't take it seriously. Resort moons, both of them, when she'd the credits. For the moment, Tesla II was enough to explore.

The accommodations they'd been gifted with were carved into dense amethyst crystal, polished stone used for the doors that slid back at the touch of her palm, though she had to suck at her finger for a moment as the identpad registered her DNA and did the same to Valrr, much to his annoyance. The entryway was immaculate, with pale turquoise floors lined intricately with copper designs that were mostly to do with electricity and avians of a particular species. A white one with a mutedly lit golden eye ringed in copper emblazoned the central chamber and a darker turquoise line illuminated the path ahead, guiding them onward. Exchanging glances with Valrr, Kyra's eyebrows rose.

 _Someone is pleased to see us in the most eccentric of ways_ , Valrr remarked. _Birds are good to eat, as long as they are large enough._

"You and your bottomless pit are going to have to refrain from eating the birds of this world. You know they don't exist anywhere else anymore, not since Terra was destroyed," she reminded him with a shake of her head. He looked dejected.

 _The avians that are called pidjes? They look tasty whatever name you give them._ Valrr didn't sound the least bit apologetic. Still sucking at her forefinger, she gave him a particularly irritated look. She had always enjoyed depictions of Terra's birds as they were so different from those that frequented her own water rich homeland.

 _No eating them_ , she reinforced mentally, _or you'll be spending the next thousand years frozen in a Prylarian cube and left on Helene for the merfolk to nibble. You think Port Authority are kidding? The last archaeologist sent here, six hundred years prior tried to make a meal and sure as the sun, Helene has him. Though, I'm not sure the mer actually ate him. Who wants freeze-dried archaeologist?_

 _Fine. Not when you put it like that. It has been Ooh, look a couch all for me._ Irreverent, as usual, and now acting like the kitten he hadn't been in entirely too long, she left him to his devices, which apparently included a nap. Kyra continued her tour and found a large pool filled with the highest grade Renewal to aid in her recovery and adjustment to the gravity differences, though she had done her best to mimic the change before arrival. Her instinct was to literally drop everything and shuck her clothing to the metaphorical wind and jump in. Despite the strength of that need, she did nothing of the sort. She kept moving, wandering past the kitchen where another pathway lit in red took her toward the bedrooms, all four of them.

"Why," she asked mostly to herself as the blinking lights stopped at an ornate door, yet again, emblazoned with a white pidjes, "are there four rooms?" Curious, she attempted to enter the others, only one slid open, the two remained lit in two flashing colors, red and blue. She stood there, her eyes narrowed in suspicion, watching the patterns shift over and over again before she sighed, shook her head, and moved back on the path leading to her door.

The pidjes split in half and grew smaller as if perching on a branch, their heads tilting back to eye her as she entered. Stepping forward, she found herself in possession of a room done in black with silver and copper accents and the bed in soothing blue with netting in silver draped and tied back with red cords. The ceiling projected the waters of Helene with her endless lit depths. Kyra watched the seamless display and for a moment caught the flash of a face and tail. As she was about to turn away, the creature turned back and her head tilted to the side curiously as if she was watching _Kyra_ from where she was on her moon. A moment later, she was gone, leaving Kyra to contemplate the exquisitely carved panel someone had attempted to literally deface. All that was left was a pair of smirking lips and a jaw, presumably of the planet's discoverer. In fact, there were extremely faded letters that said:

" _Neekoh-lah Tez-lah_ ," she read aloud as she parsed the missing letters into the whole. "Nikola Tesla," she murmured once more. Her fingers traced the _N_ and there was another sharp prick. Kyra jerked her hand back and heard some sort of strange mechanism clicking away like tumblers in an ancient lock. Blood certainly seemed to be the key to this place. It was no wonder no archaeologist had been sent for if they'd be pricked to death just in entry. This time, it had been her pinkie and she was left to nurse that, though thankfully the forefinger had already ceased to bother her in the least.

"You rang?" came a voice to her left and she whirled into a crouch, her violet eyes wide as she brandished her plasma dagger. "Oh come _on_ , do you know how long I've wanted to say that? Let's be civil, hm? The last person I sprang that on thought this place was possessed and accidentally gained a one way ticket to flotsamville."


	2. A Little Love Byte

"Floats—" Kyra stopped for a moment and then groaned as she put her dagger back into its sheath. "I assume you gave him the same greeting, our man of the deep? By biting him? The first I can understand, a simple security measure, DNA recognition, the second—"

"Unnecessary?" The voice came from the other direction. "Hardly. He tried to dig through my face. Some respect _I_ get."

"You could," she turned about, "perhaps stay still. You'll make me ill throwing your voice after a two year space journey." There was a dramatic sigh above her left year and a strange static buzz.

"Company is so difficult to find, I was growing _bored_. Honestly, that's far more dangerous than any space journey might even be—"

"Hush a moment, will you? A little distance and a little less volume, please, Mr Nikola Tesla…voice."

"Voice?" He sounded surprised. " _Voice_?! Oh _Hell_ , that sniveling reptilian _bastard_ smashed the visual— Rot in your watery grave, Godzilla. Visual interface is _everything_. That's going to take ages to replicate and H—" He stopped abruptly. "Is she there? With you?"

"Valrr and I are the only ones here," Kyra said quietly. "And the only other people I've seen have been at the airfield or, I suppose, headed the tower. Everything's been shut since my arrival. Who are you looking for?"

"Helen. I'm looking for Helen. I've always been—" His voice dissolved into a garbled mess of half words, threats perhaps, mostly in a language she didn't understand, fading in and out wildly for moment until a power spike flashed through the room.

"The moon?" she asked, searching for the electric buzz she'd heard earlier, "You're looking for the moon, Mr Tesla?" He didn't answer and the buzz was gone. Kyra let out a soft huff and moved to examine the panel, sliding her fingers along it until she felt a catch. There were a complex maze of crystals still lit and functioning, all but one. A crystal had been sheared off, its missing pieces innumerable grains of dust, leaving it dead, but mercifully cool as she popped it out and placed it into her palm. It was going to take a long time to attempt to fix this.

"Well, archaeologist to electric entity, you're lucky I'm long lived enough to have acquired a multitude of talents. Now you," she hummed holding up the damaged crystal, "we'll have to find a match for somewhere out there." _Valrr, get up, I need to get a ghost to talk to me again. He sounded upset._

 _What do you mean_ he _and_ ghost _, because I believe in nothing resembling ghosts, and if I did, talking would be one of the things they'd do the least. Why haven't you gone dipping in that liquid you like so much? It isn't my fault if you've been hallucinating._ Kyra came barreling down the corridor and smacked straight into him, while it didn't budge him at all, she went sprawling. _Steady, little kitten, you know more than to hurry in enclosed spaces. Take your time, your ghost can wait._

Kyra rubbed at her head and checked to make sure she didn't break anything that was going to get in the way of her mission. Her friend was taking the tone of an elder, now, abandoning the youthfulness he'd showed since they'd landed, and it gave her pause enough to cycle through the events. It sounded ridiculous. A voice in a room, a shattered crystal, the _moon_.

 _Fine, since you are so upset over this thing. Show me your ghost._ Kyra half registered Valrr's voice as her fingers closed around the ragged, melted bit of remaining crystal. He nudged her gently and she started, blinking still in a half daze after the collision. Wordlessly, she lead him back to her bedroom, and there the panel was, only it was shut and there were no crystals to be seen.

Immediately, she moved to trace her way along the panel, but the lip that told her where the right spot to lift for the crystals she'd just encountered was gone and nothing gave that space back to her as if it had been seamlessly sealed.

"Maybe it's the lack of adjustment going on, but I think my ghost is in trouble," she murmured, shivering a little.

Kyra remembered two things, that Valrr had pushed her onto the bed, pulling the covers over her, and that he had sat with her until she'd fallen asleep, her fingers curled tight around the broken shard. She didn't, however, remember slicing them on an edge of it. Maybe it was blood, maybe not, but she dreamt and it was vivid. She was in a massive hallway, her fingers trailing against the wall as she moved, and there was, somewhere in the distance the sound of glass breaking and tools being used on something delicate. Cussing, too. A great deal of it.

She didn't dare call out, but followed the sound, her fingers unconsciously clutching the shard she had pulled from the panel. She was _cold_ in this place, so cold, and her bare feet against the floor felt half frozen. Pausing to lean into a doorway, her fingers caught at her nightgown, which became a strange sort of dress. Crimson to the floor over wine colored boots with white lace at her throat and where her hands had been uncovered in the hallway, they now sported white lace gloves. The crystal in her hand, in direct difference to the cold that seemed to invade her body, was hot.

Another bottle broke.

Her boots were loud as she moved into the room, echoing at every step until the room filled with books from wall to wall. A man with dark hair was bent over a machine, picking at it fruitlessly and every time it made a blat sound, the wrong kind, she guessed, he hurled another bottle. He seemed utterly entranced in his work, snarling as it let out another defeated sound and reached for another bottle. Her hand got there first and he froze.

"Helen?" His head shot up to find her face and he stood there, staring, trying to sort through his thoughts. She could almost see them fly.

"Helen is a woman, then," Kyra said, her voice quiet, "not a planet." She watched him watch her, sizing her up, checking to see if he hadn't lost his, apparently considerable, mind as much as she'd checked herself earlier. "Hello, Nikola Tesla voice."

"I thought you'd be," he made a face, "taller. What was it? Little Cat?" She opened her mouth and then closed it. "Hand me that—" he waved at a bottle and her gloves disappeared, the red dress, too, to be replaced in worn leather. Her blinked a few times as she handed it over and the turned to hurl it with great irritation at the wall. "Kyra. And _stop that_ , it's a horrible noise," she said, closing her fingers around his wrist before he threw anything else at the wall. His wrist didn't matter at all, a moment later. "What _are_ you working on?" She brushed under his outstretched arm as he reached for another bottle and wormed her way into his workspace, taking it in with wide eyed fascination. It was like the crystal panel she'd seen, almost exactly. The crystals were arranged differently, though, almost at random, as if they'd been thrown up into the air.

"Don't touch!" he snapped. "You can't possibly figure that out, it would take you millennia just for the pattern sequencing, not to mention the activating sequence and activator."

"Shall I leave, then?" Kyra asked, not glancing at him as she moved aside. "Mind, I thought you'd be taller, too. For a voice." He started to retort, but fell silent as she made a complete replica of the piece he was working on so she'd not mess up his and then made another one based upon the one she'd seen back in her room. And then she put down the melted piece next to his. "Blood is your activator, with time as your activating sequence probably from the last known position of the stars above. That's why there was no request for six hundred years. My guess is that time is at a standstill in here and with no reference point, you're stuck, Nikola Tesla. You call out with that sequence, but time has passed you by."

He was staring, tight lipped, between her hand and the melted crystal with an expression torn between hunger and genuine intrigue before he started to pace in the other direction. A white cloth sailed in her direction and she caught it with a surprised sound.

"Correct, Little Cat." She started to protest, but gave in. At least she was an entity in the least. "Perhaps there's a use for you yet. Bind that, please." He wouldn't look her way until she did and somehow that made it all better. When she let go, there was no blood and the cut seemed a memory. "When you last saw it, that's what it looked like? Exactly?"

"Of course. You can't expect an archaeologist to have faulty memory. If I had, gods know I'd have died back on Prylar millions of times over. That's the crystal that went where the dead spot is, here. It looks like it sheared off at the top where the fittings are and _poof_. It's dust, the top part, and I went to go find Valrr after that. I could carve it if I get the right crystal. But we got back and no panel, just that bizarrely defaced portrait panel. You do know everything's off it save part of your name and a smirk, right?"

Tesla grabbed another bottle and looked not only sullen but incredibly deflated to the point where she half ducked in case he felt like throwing something else, but to his credit, he produced two glasses out of nowhere and fell heavily into an armchair. The glass arced into the air and she caught it nimbly.

"It's bad enough he tried to erase my name, but he had to steal my _face_?" he grumbled, his knee thrown casually over the arm of the chair as he poured a glass of wine. "I knew he wasn't to be trusted as soon as he walked in. Grubby handed, lying, pillaging _thief_."

She buried her laugh into her wine, which was excellent and sipped at it until he sat there in silence, mourning the loss of his quite replaceable portrait. He actually looked as if he were going to start crying and she couldn't tell if it were for show or if he was genuinely that upset. Kyra cleared her throat.

"Show me what it looked like and I'll restore it as soon as I'm," her brow wrinkled as she turned the glass around a little and peered at him through it, "well, not here." A hundred surprised faces of Nikola Tesla peered back.

"You know, I carved that _myself_ ," he said a moment later. "Before all of this. _Long_ before all of this. It wasn't even _on_ this planet."

"Tesla I, I'm guessing," she said almost gently. "The star charts logged its demise a few million years ago, catastrophic explosion was listed as its reason, near planetary obliteration, save for what's left of it in the rings. Your Helen?"

Uncertainty flickered across his face and he drained his cup dry before pouring another one. She could hear the bottle creak as he squeezed his hand around its neck and watched his nails lengthen into sharp black points. Kyra gently prized the bottle from him and realized her clothing had changed again, back into the red it had been before.

" _Sanguine Vampiris_ ," she whispered, her voice soft, a hum of recognition passing through every cell in her body. His eyes confirmed it as they darkened from blue to black, deep red at their edges, eclipsing almost the whole of the sclera. Setting the bottle on the floor, she moved slowly and without fear. "Tell me, Nikola Tesla Voice," she said, "what happened to you and your Helen. Where did she go?"

" _My Helen? My Helen is_ **here**." His voice was distorted, as graveled or even more than she'd ever heard Valrr's. There was pain, too, agony, and while she heard it in his voice, she felt it throughout her own. The same heat that had come from the crystal was rising through her as his hand clamped over her wrist and his nails dug in just enough to draw blood. His grip could have shattered her, but it didn't. At eye level, she watched him fight it and abruptly, he was, wearily, himself again.

"She's here," Kyra half echoed, her voice almost as weary as his own, but wondering. "You should. You should do something. You should do something about the fire." His face shimmered in front of her as he pulled her up and then caught her in his arms when her knees buckled. She saw her skirt flash in an arc, a white gloved hand in the air. He was yelling. Yelling at her.

Remember.

Remember.

 _Remember her._

 _Helen?_

Helen.

Kyra. That was her name.

 _Kyra?_ Wasn't it? Someone was calling her, frightened.


	3. Do Electric Dreams Remember Sheep?

_KYRA._

She woke violently at the sound of her name screaming through her mind, throwing her head as if to get away from the voice and then froze at Valrr's almost terrified expression as he stared down at her. _The healing man has come, it is alright, but you were going somewhere else. I cannot follow you to that place._

Tesla, she whispered urgently, _he's stuck. In the walls. In the armchair with the wine. I have to find the panel, have to find the moon. Sanguine Vampiris, Valrr. Sanguine. It's in the blood. Helen's here. He said to remember._

 _Kitten, hush. The healer man cannot help you if you struggle. We will find your strange man in the walls. Later. Sleep. You are going in Renewal. Let me have it. The crystal. Come now. You've cut yourself._

She was moving, everything was moving, the walls, the ceiling, the sounds all around her moving. High pitched voices, lower growls, paws against tile. Fluttering, fluttering.

Fluttering.

A million wings in her mind, a bottle of wine shattering, a plea. She didn't let go. She'd drop it if she let go.

 _My Lady, don't leave me._ Valrr cried out and threw the full weight of his mind behind it.

And then it was cool.

The crystal sank into the water, down deep, and her fingers couldn't catch it. There was only the thrum of Valrr and the sound of the waterfall rumbling in the distance. Nothing else was important save the dream, and that she held to with all of her will.

Light streamed through an open window and the sound of traffic hummed in the streets below, a thousand horns, laughter, the fluttering of wings. Shapes in the window danced and her head lolled back. Everything shifted. A tree. Bird seed, that is what they called it, flying through the air. Her eyebrow twitched in confusion.

"Pidjes?" she mumbled, surprised.

"Easy. Don't move." Kyra froze immediately as the bird worked its way up her chest. "Breathe or you'll pass out and then what am I going to do with you?" She tried not to laugh.

"They don't eat Arill do they?" she asked carefully. He was dropping seed all _over_ her as he laughed.

"Not unless you're made of seeds."

"Are you alright, now?"

"Are you?" He glanced down at her, frowning. "I thought you were my knight in shining armor."

"What does that make you? The pretty Pidjes princess in the tower?" The frown dissolved into an amused smile.

"Fine, then. I'm the pretty—" He shook his head and laughed. There was no way he was saying that.

" _Pretty_ _Pidjes Princess Mr Tesla._ " It came out in a whisper as the black and white speckled bird came closer. "I think I might be dying a little. It's not what I expected."

"I know." It bothered him a little. Probably more than it should have. "But you haven't yet and we'll see if we can do something about it, soon."

"Valrr's got me in the Renewal. I guess that's helping but the crystal, I dropped it in there." There was a long beat of silence and a slight yawn from her. "Your pidjes has sharp claws, tell her to be careful."

"It's _pigeon_."

" _Pidjes_ ," she murmured, "be careful."

"How do you know it's a her?" he asked, curious.

"Aren't they all?" She glanced up at him, wide eyed and curious. He tossed more seed into the air and she shielded her face against his chest.

"Most of them," he answered.

"We'll find her."

"Hm?" He brushed seed from her hair absently.

"Your Helen." There was multitude of wings in the air, fluttering as sunshine dappled light through the bright spring green leaves. This was too comfortable and the sun was warm. It had been a long time since Kyra had felt comfortable. "Pee- _gee_ -yon," she enunciated the word as carefully as she could, though it was very much under her breath and his lips twitched back a smile.

"Thank you, Little Cat."

"Mr Tesla?" Her voice was quiet as she paused. His soft, almost distracted query reminded her to continue. "Do I stay here, when I'm gone?"

"The last time you did."

"Good. Then it makes sense. If I sleep, I come here. If I wake, I go there. I may solve puzzles again out there, when I can stand again." She watches his face for awhile, long and thoughtful. "Did you know that all the pid— All the birds are white? Out there?"

"I suppose there are many, now," he said, letting another pigeon walk along his arm without complaint.

"I am glad I came. Knight of Pidjes, Protector of the—"

"Realm, I think it was," he finished.

"Yes. I should wake now, and find you and yours a way out." She was silent for a moment more. "I'm sorry your planet blew up."

"Experiments can be unpredictable." She nodded a little, watching his expression, but it remained minutely changed. A ruefulness that caught his lips for a fleeting second or two. There was more to the story and he wasn't going to tell it quite yet. Like any mystery, any puzzle, there was always that moment of great reveal. Today was not that day.

"Then I will see you later, Princess Pidjes," she said with a grin.

" _Pigeon_ ," she heard him say as the world faded around her, "it's _pigeon_ , Little Cat."

And so, she woke.


	4. A Penny for Your Brain?

Charts were strewn around her bedroom, notes made in runic shorthand she preferred when relic hunting. They marked mineral and crystal deposits that seemed a likely fit for the one that had snapped, though she still hadn't found the mysterious panel. She'd tried every last panel she could, but none of them matched the configuration of the one they'd seen. Tesla's seemed to change in the virtual world as often as he came close to solving it. Three days after her overheating incident and they had narrowed the reaction down to contact with a toxic crystal, but it was that crystal and the power surge that had given her access to Tesla's virtual world. She wasn't calling it toxic at all, no matter what the tower doctor or Valrr said. Unintended side effects seemed more likely than toxic at any rate. Kyra ran her finger along the thin scar left from gripping it too hard and frowned as Valrr paced in front of her as he had every time she'd tried to leave.

Going out there is dangerous. What if you overheat again? She gave him a look as she sprawled across the bed and propped herself up. What if you die this time? I can't stop that and I can't protect you if you don't let me help.

This coming from a Prylarian? Valrr, are you suggesting I quit? If you are, you can get back on the next shuttle and go home. I said I'd get him out, not sit on my bed for the rest of my life. Everything I do is dangerous, everything I've ever done could get me killed. The best part of it is that I've done it . Anyone else can see it just from the exhibits out there, or the papers I've written. If I don't do this- Kyra flicked her fingers at another part of the map with a crystal deposit and sent the data to her database. If I don't do this and I don't help him, I'm no better than that idiot who tried to eat a pidjes. Since when have you been so reluctant to go on any adventure? Because that's what this is.

Since you nearly died. Really died, Valrr shot back. I was awake, I felt it! If we hadn't gotten you into Renewal, you would have been dead, burnt out like a circuit. You're my Voice, my friend, and letting you do this isn't at all prudent. He had his formal voice on, too. She was in trouble, the sort that wasn't going to take two seconds to get out of, either.

This is important. I'm sure you'd see different if you'd been there, but you're not even open to the concept. I'm going out there and I'm doing it now. The storms start in a few days and I refuse to be shut up inside for that long without something to occupy my time that isn't-

I'm not helping you get yourself killed, Valrr growled and cut her off again with an angry retort that needed no real translation. He was beyond upset and they both knew it. She buried her face in her hands and worked her way upright to stare at the Nikola Tesla panel for the millionth time before loading up her pack with the rest of the supplies. Valrr's worries weren't dismissed, but neither could she force herself to be still.

WHAT IF I WEAR GLOVES? she hollered a moment later, but her friend said nothing. "Godsdammit," Kyra hissed and jerked her straps over her shoulders before shifting the weight of the bag. Fine, she was doing this alone. So what if she was going to seethe all the way back to the airfield and onto her ship? Or even through preflight check and start up?

"Tower One, this is Kyra, Prime Archaeologist on The White Pidjes with preflight check done, requesting liftoff for a crystal run, flight plan and manifest on file 002 Delta-Five. Valrr declined the run, going solo." She snapped her restraint in place and did it all again. "Instruments are green. At your discretion, over."

"Received. White Pidjes , we have on our screen, no incoming vehicles, you are clear to proceed to vector 009 for liftoff. Please be advised, day 02 of your flight plan will put you within striking distance of an electromagnetic storm while your are in a crystal heavy region. Your storm shelter is marked on your map. Take refuge when warned," the flight officer responded. "Good hunting, Prime, over."

"Received. Etan, tell Valrr not to mope. It doesn't suit him. And ask him to look into the power surges. He's not listening to me, over." She powered the engines and retracted the landing gear, her ship floating as her impulse engines came online.

"Received. Will do. Don't get torched out there, over." Kyra sighed and headed to lift off, pleased when she was up and skimming high above the forests as she headed toward her first crystal deposit. Electromagnetic storms and crystals, so the data had told her were a magnificent sight, though they could apparently cause illness for those unfamiliar with the vibrations. She grimaced a little and flicked a switch to adjust the polarization of the front windows as she was heading into the sun. Honestly, she should have left earlier. The argument had given her less quality time to spend at the first site than she wanted and she needed to get to the third site before the storm hit. Her ship could hold out just fine in an electromag storm if needed, but powering everything off was the safest of bets no matter how fortified you might think your shielding was. If she could have swung it, which obviously she couldn't, she'd have taken the base's hopper in. It was easier to store, for one thing. You were less likely to get torched, too. From her read up on the planet, getting torched was another word for essentially getting your brain fried from too many frequencies hitting it and pretty much exploding your brain. It sounded about as unpleasant as it was.

The landscape below was beyond colorful and some colors were so exotic she was sure they didn't have any real recorded names. Trees were actually encapsulated, like ice, in full crystal growth, and she'd seen lakes that were simply remnants of what had been as the massive crystalline ranges encroached on the natural world beyond their reaches. It was breathtaking at sunset when the color of the sky above turned to jewel tones and lit the mountains up as they reflected it. Her craft dipped and turned about five hours into her flight, setting her down in a ravine on a ledge. Once, ages before anyone outside the system had ever stepped on the surface of this planet, there had been some sort of mining operation, but that looked like it had been abandoned possibly before Tesla I had met its demise. Her fingers hit several switches as she powered down for the evening. There wasn't the best chance for her to do more than a little harvesting for study before she knew she had to rest, but she'd do what she could. Looking for a specific frequency of crystal resonance was like attempting to find a particular strain of grain when everything looked the gadsdamned same. It was beyond frustrating.

Kyra shrugged her climbing gear on, gauging the sun's descent to the point where the reflection would be too strong for her to work and decided she'd put up in a few hours more to avoid the worst. Once it passed, she could use the lights she'd clipped on the line and to her pack to see by as she worked the ravine. It was the psychic resonance she was looking for at the end of it, not a particular color. Lifting her gloved hand up, she inserted the phase cutter to the back of her hand and strapped it tight. Her armor was sleek and fit snug against her flight suit. Custom built, it protected the wearer against the worst drops and she'd worn it on more than one expedition with success. Pulling her visor down, she anchored her safety tether and lowered herself to the firs ledge below where her ship was and swung herself in to land. Somewhere beyond the mouth of the sheltered cave, she could hear the wind whistling eerily. It was almost like whispering as the sound distorted, the kind that made her shiver involuntarily as she worked to set up her base camp. Shining her torch along the smooth passage, she stepped forward and realized it wasn't smooth at all.

Massive carved birds in incredibly lifelike detail had been chiseled and worked with great skill into the sides of the passage. It had been a little unsettling before with the wind against the crystal, but now, she wondered if she had stumbled onto something more important than just a cave. Whomever had been living on this planet before, they'd never been seen, so this sort of work remained undiscovered, waiting for people like Kyra to blunder into them. She wasn't sure that accounted for the way her skin seemed to crawl. The crystal birds seemed to follow her, their beaks pointing the way forward as night began to fall.

Kyra? She snapped the light around, but it was birds everywhere, their beaks pointing onward. Kyra, Kyra. Hear me, hear me. She was alone with no one to hear what she did. Ahead, she felt the air cool and when she let her breath out, it clouded the air to the sound of rushing water. As she turned the corner, she stopped, her brow furrowed. A figure stood near an outcropping of rocks.

"Hello?" she called softly as she advanced, but the figure just swayed. "Who's there?" She blinked and it was gone as an icy wind buried itself into her with such ferocity, her fingers dug into the rock as it stole her breath for a moment. Nothing about this site said anything about it remotely being an activity spot. Her voice echoed ahead until she clapped her hands over her ears, wincing as she moved forward. Everything but her psychic sense said this cave was incredibly empty, but something wasn't right. Her name kept ringing through her head in low tones until she slid to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest. Right here.

There was someone here.

Kyra? Why would they dare wake me? What did I do, do, do... What have I done? That's your name? Yes?

Who is this? Casting her mind out was incredibly painful. Hello? Somewhere further in where the water came from, something was shifting, the walls were vibrating, thrumming with sound folding over sound. In the roar of crystal echoing against crystal, she heard a voice sigh.

I didn't call you, child. Did I? I think I would have remembered and that means, you're not welcome. Before she could so much as get to her feet, a great shift of crystal heaved itself upward and turned a pair of glittering green eyes on her. **My crystal, my cave. It's mine.** Black crystalline teeth shone in the light of her torch as an eerie sound slammed into her, pushing her back the way she'd come until there was nothing but that sound tearing into her mind in an attempt to rip it to shreds.

All Kyra could do was scream.


	5. Look Ma No Hands

"When we look at the world around us, on Nature, we are impressed with its beauty and grandeur. Each thing we perceive, though it may be vanishingly small, is in itself a world, that is, like the whole of the universe, matter and force governed by law, a world, the contemplation of which fills us with feelings of wonder and irresistibly urges us to ceaseless thought and inquiry. But in all this vast world, of all objects our senses reveal to us, the most marvellous, the most appealing to our imagination, appears no doubt a highly developed organism, a thinking being." There was a flourish at the end, his movements theatrical from across the room as rain spattered the windows of the packed lecture room. Somewhere outside, thunder rumbled as she pushed her way through the people as he started speaking again, and fell to her knees, both drained and completely shaken.

... _a thinking being_...

Thinking. It had spoke, in her mind, which meant it could reason.

The room dissolved, but the scent of rain lingered as he caught her arm. He opened his mouth to say something appropriately scathing about interrupting his glory days and felt absolutely silent. For the longest moment, all she could do was stare up at him as he helped her upright and almost immediately buried her nose against his chest in relief. Dismay was the next thing to hit her. If she were here, then that meant-

Oh.

"On a scale of one to, gods, I don't know? Pick a range of epic shitstorm," she said, her eyes wide, "how big is _I met a massive sentient dragon with way too many teeth and it might be eating me right now_ ?" Kyra wasn't even sure there was a scale for that, but it sounded about as shit as it was.

"That's firmly into the stratosphere of terrible life choices." His fingers settled against her hair thoughtfully. "Slowly, Kyra, you have time. Where are you and what have you done?" Facts first, panic later. They were here, like this, for a reason. That's what it was. She drew a careful breath, her fingers closing around the fabric of his jacket to anchor her. The maps, the crystal sites, her argument with Valrr, all of it came spilling out right down to the carved birds in that glassy corridor. She spared nothing, not that her ship was sitting in a semi-powered state on the ledge above or that she'd already set out the base camp. It wasn't ideal, going out by herself like this, but she'd done plenty runs before Valrr came into her life. Clearly she'd grown complacent and had taken him for granted yet again. Hell, she didn't even know if know if he was tuned into her or staunchly ignoring her. He might even be on his way back to Prylar. Twenty-five million things she didn't need to focus on at the moment clamored for her attention and that argument was at the forefront. Tesla sighed when she was done and detached himself so he could crouch and look her in the eye, his hand cupping her chin as his expression curved into an almost mischievous smirk.

"I guess I'm just going to have to find a way to get there, then," he said as her hand found his wrist. "Energy is energy after all."

"If you follow the relay from the house to the station, and lock onto my ship's transponder to guide you in, it just might work," she said, flicking up a quick diagram and drawing the route out. "Dead spots can be filled in by using the energy collected in the fields of crystal here, here, and here. There's enough energy build up that you ought to be able to siphon it and use it to keep the signal running." He rose to pace and work on a few more calculations while he thought it over. It was a solid plan for getting into her systems, that's for sure. Kyra was cold, strangely so, as they worked on getting the system relays set and shivered lightly as they worked.

"I suppose it's not too much to think I can simply just commandeer the entire relay network of this planet. No one will miss it for the 2.8 milliseconds it'll take, anyway." He flicked his fingers and brought up the relay network and reset everything so that he had override access before giving her a dazzling smile. "One more thing, Little Cat?" Her eyebrows arched. "I might need a little flight instruction. I'm not used to being so behind the times."

"You just want to fly my pretty ship." He spread his arms because that wasn't a lie. "Fine, crash course. Not literally. You put a scratch on her and-"

"Yes, yes," he murmured, impatiently motioning for her to continue. "Blah, blah, threats, etc. None of that's going to matter if you don't let me fly your ship. Schematics, flight manual?" Kyra slapped him upside the head as she sat on the desk beside him. "What the hell was that for?"

"I'm basically in your head. Everything you need to know is here. Forget the flight manuals and the schematics. Just take it from my mind. All the experiences I've had are at your-" She waved at him.

"Purview," he supplied casually and then made a scooting motion. "Off my desk or I'm getting you a kiddie chair."

"Ooh, did you just insult my height?" She threw a bunch of papers at him. "That's such a low blow." He made a face and a few noises of protest as he caught a few of the pages midair. "Master of Electricity, Inventor of great machines, feeder of the rare pidjes, insulter of tiny, defenseless-" His fingers were flying away as he adjusted and compensated, jumping from relay to relay and taking her with him as he did so. Something was burning somewhere, though and when he did pull the information from her, she was pretty sure it had given her a little bit of a headache. Or that might be due to external stressors.

"Oh please, defenseless? You shoot from the hip and take no prisoners, Kyra. Defenseless my a-" He cut himself off with a cry of triumph. "HA! I'm in. Edison, eat your heart out." She patted at his sleeve, which was actually starting to smoke. He waved distractedly at her. "Maybe you want to, I don't know, wake up so I can actually save the day? Go, go. I've got this."

"Not a scratch," she whispered into his ear and dropped a kiss against his temple. "Good luck, flyboy." He gave her an amused look and shook his head before scooting her along again.

"Hey, Kyra? Try not to expire before I get there," he called after her. "I'm not sure crystalline dragons, sentient or not, will appreciate my incredible feats of daring quite as much." Kyra turned back to fire off a salute as the virtual world faded and she fell headlong back into her body.

Maybe falling headlong was too soft of a description. Rocketting, maybe. Whatever the correct description was, the end result was horrifyingly painful as she came back to herself. Her brain felt like it was on fire and maybe a little melted. Actually, it felt fairly similar to that time she and Valrr got themselves trapped in a tomb and had to mess with the electronic containment field surrounding the sarcophagus of some ruler no one remembered. Getting the damned thing to hold up as the cave fell apart around them and the pressure of the shockwave blasted down? Yeah. That hurt. On the positive side, she was still alive and not in the process of being eaten. In fact, she was almost at the entrance of the cave, and apparently still moving. The noise wasn't there anymore, even if she head was still ringing from it. The ground swayed and then she was unceremoniously dropped hard enough that she curled into herself as she hit. The rock groaned and then rumbled, the tremor of The White Pidjes's engine pitched just high enough to confuse the creature intent on pushing Kyra right off the edge. With cry, it struck out and flung her into the air. For a moment, all she could see was the drop and feel the impossibly cold wind on her face as she began to plummet. A rush of warmer air though and a gleaming white shape flipped and arrowed down below her.

The next thing she knew she was hitting the deck of her ship.

"Nice ride," Tesla said as she rolled over with a soft groan. "That was quite the impressive aerial display and dear God, it's like having a body again. Only I can fly." A drawer popped open a second later. "You're going to have a hell of a bruise." First aid kit, well done. "I assume we're not particularly attached to staying here?" The dragon, which is what she was calling it, had decided to whip it's tail out at them and they veered off a second later. One day, she was going to figure out what was up with those bird carvings and the dragon itself. It could be some sort of sacrificial dumping ground for all she knew. Records of some sort had to be around, even if they'd been buried.

"Ugh," Kyra grumbled, working her way to the front before collapsing in her chair with an cold pack to her face. "My head still feels somewhat liquified. I don't think I've ever had the privilege of having my head oscillated at those frequencies before."

"Well," he murmured, "they were fairly high frequency. I'm actually surprised you're awake at all."

"I'm incredibly resilient. It's part of my charm." She flicked a few switches and brought up the map to contemplate. "Take your pick of sites, but we're going to need to figure out where to put you for that electromag storm. I mean, I've got a little repair drone that do well enough. The holo emitter's shit, but it should support you and you ought to be able to hop back into the ship no problem."

"Really?" He sounded incredibly offended. "I just came all this way and you're going to put me in R2-D2? What mortal sin have I committed to deserve this?"

"It's a really fabulous maintenance drone and I designed it. Don't put down my work, you haven't even seen it yet! Besides, it's not like you have to get in the damned thing right now." She waved a little at the map. "By all means, fly us in loops if you must. And we're going to the second site, if you don't mind."

"Fine." He was totally sulking, she could hear it in his voice. "But it better be the coolest little bot that could." Kyra made a face and slapped the console as they accelerated. "Go...take a nap or something. It'll several hours at best and the storm isn't incoming for a few more after arrival." He was silent for awhile as she flicked the screen clear of the map. "You're visiting, right?"

"No, I'm going to leave you all alone so you can sulk about how you're going to need to give up those massive, sexy engines for a few hours." He protested until she patted the nearest bulkhead. "Don't be ridiculous, of course I'm dropping by. You're my default dreamstop until, well. Until we get your body back, I suppose."

"Thank God," he murmured, "for that. Boredom doesn't suit me. I suppose I'll see you in a few." Kyra smiled and shook her head as she eased herself down the narrow corridor and dropped herself into the little bed nestled into the side of the ship. Finally, non-emergency sleep. She never wanted it so badly. Kyra let out a yawn and pulled the blankets up.

"Hey, Sparky," she said, her voice a mumble. "Try not to access the interplanetary network or hack it. I don't want to wake up with IPN up my rear because you can't keep your hands to yourself."

"I solemnly promise to be a gentleman and follow network protocols to the letter," he said. Kyra wasn't remotely sure he was telling the truth about that and with the press of a button, initiated lockdown mode on all the doors. Just in case.


End file.
